Biophilic Theory

If design doesn’t focus on aspects of the natural world that contribute

to human health and productivity in the age -old struggle to be fit and
survive, it is not biophilic.

By Stephen Kellert

Interior Kroon Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT – The use of natural materials such as wood, and
spaces that include natural geometries such as fractals and curves, can be highly evocative and satisfy
biophilic design needs.
Photo credit: Peter Otis

Biophilic design seeks to connect our inherent need to affiliate with nature in the modern built
environment. An extension of the theory of biophilia, biophilic design recognizes that our
species has evolved for more than 99% of its history in adaptive response to the natural world
and not to human created or artificial forces. We became biologically encoded to associate
with natural features and processes. Rather than being vestigial – or relevant to a world that
no longer exists – this need is thought to remain instrumental to people’s physical and mental
health, fitness, and wellbeing.

Since today’s “natural habitat” is largely the built environment, where we now spend 90% of
our time, biophilic design seeks to satisfy our innate need to affiliate with nature in modern
buildings and cities. Thus, the fundamental goal of biophilic design is to create good habitat
for people as biological organisms inhabiting modern structures, landscapes, and
communities. Accomplishing this objective depends on meeting certain conditions. First,
because biophilia is essentially about evolved human tendencies, biophilic design focuses on
those aspects of nature that, over evolutionary time, have contributed to our health and
wellbeing. Let us be clear on this point: Any occurrence of nature in the built environment
cannot be called biophilic design if it has no bearing on our species’ inborn tendencies that
have advanced our fitness and survival.

Simply put, biophilic design focuses on those aspects of the natural world that have
contributed to human health and productivity in the age-old struggle to be fit and
survive. Thus, desert or deep-sea habitats or microorganisms or alien or extinct species or other
obscure aspects of nature are largely irrelevant as aspects of biophilic design because they
offer little if anything in the way of sustained benefits to people.

Another distinguishing feature of biophilic design is its emphasis on the overall setting or
habitat and NOT a single or isolated occurrence of nature. All organisms exist within
connected and related environments bound together as integrated wholes or
ecosystems. When the habitat functions in the best interests of the organism, the ecosystem
performs at a level greater than the sum of its individual parts. By contrast, habitats
comprised of disconnected and unrelated elements provide few benefits to its constituents and
may even harm individual members. Thus, simply inserting an object of nature into a human
built environment, if unrelated or at variance with other more dominant characteristics of the
setting, exert little positive impact on the health and performance of the people who occupy
these spaces.
 Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas – Many successful biophilic designs are inspired by
qualities and features of natural settings without being exact duplicates.
Photo credit: Whit Slemmons

The effectiveness of biophilic design depends on interventions that are connected,

complementary, and integrated within the overall environment rather than being isolated or
transient.
A third distinctive feature of biophilic design is its emphasis on engaging with and repeated
contact with nature. Biophilia can be described as a “weak” rather than “hard-wired”
biological tendency that, like much of what makes us human, must be learned and
experienced to become fully functional. Although we may be biologically inclined to affiliate
with nature, for this contact to be useful, it must be nurtured through repeated and
reinforcing experience. The benefits of biophilic design depend on engaging contact with
nature rather than occasional, exceptional, or ephemeral experiences.

These distinctive characteristics yield a set of five conditions for the effective practice of
biophilic design. Each underscores what is and IS NOT biophilic design:

1. Biophilic design emphasizes human adaptations to the natural world that over evolutionary
time have proven instrumental in advancing people’s health, fitness, and wellbeing. Exposures
to nature irrelevant to human productivity and survival exert little impact on human
wellbeing and are not effective instances of biophilic design.
2. Biophilic design depends on repeated and sustained engagement with nature. An
occasional, transient, or isolated experience of nature exerts only superficial and fleeting effects
on people, and can even, at times, be at variance with fostering beneficial outcomes.
3. Biophilic design requires reinforcing and integrating design interventions that connect with
the overall setting or space. The optimal functioning of all organisms depends on immersion
within habitats where the various elements comprise a complementary, reinforcing, and
interconnected whole. Exposures to nature within a disconnected space – such as an isolated
plant or an out of context picture or a natural material at variance with other dominant
spatial features – is NOT effective biophilic design.
4. Biophilic design fosters emotional attachments to settings and places. By satisfying our
inherent inclination to affiliate with nature, biophilic design engenders an emotional
attachment to particular spaces and places. These emotional attachments motivate people’s
performance and productivity, and prompt us to identify with and sustain the places we
inhabit.
5. Biophilic design fosters positive and sustained interactions and relationships among people
and the natural environment. Humans are a deeply social species whose security and
productivity depends on positive interactions within a spatial context. Effective biophilic design
fosters connections between people and their environment, enhancing feelings of relationship,
and a sense of membership in a meaningful community.

Unfortunately, modern society has insufficiently supported the human need to affiliate
with nature, erecting various obstacles to the satisfying experience of the natural world, often
treating nature as simply raw material to be transformed through technology or a nice but
NOT necessary recreational and aesthetic amenity. This increasing separation from nature is
reflected in much of our modern agriculture, manufacturing, education, healthcare, urban
development, and architectural design.
 The modern assumption that humans no longer need to affiliate with nature is
revealed in the widespread practice of placing people in sensory deprived and artificial
settings such as office buildings, hospitals, schools, shopping centers–with little if any contact
with natural forces and stimuli. Much of today’s built environment is designed lacking
adequate natural light, natural ventilation, natural materials, vegetation, views,
environmental shapes and forms, and other evolved affinities for the natural world. In many
ways, these structures remind us of the barren sensory-deprived cages of the old-style zoo, now
ironically banned as “inhumane.” We are just beginning to find that these environmentally
impoverished habitats foster fatigue, symptoms of disease, and impaired performance, and
the simple introduction of natural lighting, outside views, and vegetation can result in
enhanced health and productivity.

Central Atrium, Genzyme Building, Cambridge, MA – The creative interplay of natural lighting,
spaciousness, plants, and water in a central atrium can simulate the qualities of an exterior setting in
an indoor space.
Photo credit: Behnisch Architects; Phototographer: Anton Grassl/Esto

The fundamental challenge of biophilic design is to address these deficiencies in the

modern built environment by initiating a new framework for the beneficial occurrence
of nature. The effective application of biophilic design begins with adhering to the
previously described basic principles. From there, particular practices of biophilic design
can be employed to help implement positive and beneficial outcomes. These
applications of biophilic design are listed below, although more detailed descriptions
can be found in Kellert and Calabrese, The Practice of Biophilic Design (www.biophilic-
design.com).

DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF NATURE • Natural Colors

• Light • Mobility and Wayfinding
• Air • Cultural and Ecological Attachment
• Water to Place
• Plants • Simulating Natural Light and Air
• Animals • Naturalistic Shapes and Forms
• Natural Landscapes and Ecosystems • Evoking Nature
• Weather • Information Richness
• Age, Change, and the Patina of
INDIRECT EXPERIENCE OF NATURE Time
• Images of Nature • Natural Geometries
• Natural Materials • Biomimicry

Green Wall adjacent to Masonry Wall, Paris – These contrasting building facades
employ direct (plants) and indirect (masonry and grill work that mimic organic forms)
strategies to achieve successful biophilic effects.

Photo Credit: S.R. Kellert

EXPERIENCE OF SPACE AND PLACE
• Prospect and Refuge
• Organized Complexity
• Integration of Parts to Wholes
• Transitional Spaces

It is important to realize that biophilic design is more than just a new way to make
people more efficient by applying an innovative technical tool. The successful
application of biophilic design fundamentally depends on adopting a new
consciousness toward nature, recognizing how much our physical and mental wellbeing
continues to rely on the quality of our connections to the world beyond ourselves of
which we still remain a part.